Hold On
by Rebel Gauge
Summary: Cole finds himself back in Liberty in an attempt to save Jim's life and Zee might just find out that he's not as heartless as he'd like her to believe. Will things get complicated when Jesse returns to town?
1. Hold On

AN: Instead of taking Jimmy somewhere to die out in the middle of nowhere, in this scenarioCole jumps on his brother'shorse behind him and splits off from the rest of the gang, heading toward help. Let's face it, these guys grew up in the area around Liberty and they know the landscape a lot better than Pinkerton's men. This is probably what they would've done in real life to give Jim at least a chance to survive.

That's right folks, he's got a chance!

* * *

"Hold on, Jimmy. Just a little longer. We're almost there," Cole panted as he sprinted up the small incline that lead to Doc Mimms' front porch, his little brother dead weight in his fast tiring arms.

In another couple of seconds his boots were pounding loudly on the wooden porch stairs, and then on the front door as he kicked it as hard as he could.

"Doc! Doc!" he yelled, sounding more desperate than he ever remembered sounding in his life, and that included during the war.

Zee opened the door and just managed to move out of his way as he barreled past her, taking an unconscious Jim straight back to the room where the Doc liked to examine his patients. The Doc came in via the swinging door that attached to the kitchen, looking bewildered and then saddened as he realized that the first of the James-Younger gang had come to his house to die.

Cole quickly laid Jim down on the wooden table in the center of the room, but still gripped the upper portion of his brother's arm with one hand, finding himself reluctant to let go. "You've got to help him, you've got to save him, Doc! I'll do anything, just tell me what you need and I'll kill anyone to get it!"

The Doc hadn't ever been a very forward man, but as a doctor he knew his craft. And that knowledge and assuredness in his ability was what allowed him to harden his features and, for the briefest moment, become the disciplinarian of a father that Cole had been sorely lacking since he was fourteen.

He grabbed the stress-haggard young outlaw standing before him and with more strength than he'd possessed for many years he tore the oldest Younger boy away from the smallest one, forcing him out the door.

Once outside, Mimms gave him a firm shake to make sure he had Cole's attention. "Now you listen to me, Coleman Younger. That boy in there was born in this house, and unless you want him to die here you must stay away from this room until I tell you different. I cannot have you distracting me. Understand, son?"

The stocky young man nodded, his eyes on the floor because he didn't want the Doc to see the tears that were overwhelming him. He was too choked to speak.

"Zee, take care of him," the Doc ordered. His daughter had been standing with pause in the background of the front parlor, watching and feeling helpless all the while. As soon as she had a job to do she took to it immediately, stepping forward to wrap one arm around Cole's so she could gently guide him over to the couch to sit down while her father marched purposely back to the sick room to try to salvage whatever could be saved.

He went with her willingly, seeming to be stunned by shock. Once she got him settled, Zee sat next to him on the soft cushions, one hand on his thick shoulder while the other made soothing circles across the stress-taunt muscles of his back. He was slumped forward, his face covered by two trembling hands as sobs racked him at irregular intervals.

As she picked her brain for something comforting to say she realized that she didn't know him as well as the others. She'd been sweet on Jesse and Bob when they were children because they'd been her age, the three of them had grown up together, sitting next to each other in school everyday. Frank and Cole had always just been Jess and Bob's older brothers, and while she'd always had fond memories of quiet Frank sitting off in a corner reading some book, the only memories she had of Coleman were of his tall tales, his attempts at singeing her braids with a branding iron, and the time she caught him groping her best friend Jenny out behind the church after Christmas services just a few short months before the Liberty Boys left for war.

He'd always been a mean but attractive boy, beating on his brothers and anyone else stupid enough to get in his way. Girls of all types, both bad and good, had flocked to him for as long as Zee could remember, and she'd never stopped to wonder if all the violence and bloodshed had changed him over the years.

Apparently something had worked a miracle on him. He'd had just about everyone in and around Liberty Missouri convinced that he didn't care a fig if either of his brothers dropped dead. He'd threatened to do the deed himself on a number of occasions. Now that Jimmy was dying, though, he was a mess.

"Shh, it's gonna be all right, Cole. I promise," she said, trying to soothe a man who was obviously inconsolable.

He shook his head, roughly trying to wipe the dampness from his eyes. "No, it's not. It should be me in there on that table dying, not Jimmy. He's just a boy. He ain't never even killed a man or been with a woman and he's dying cause of my Goddamn pride! I'll kill every soul the railroad depends on for this. I'll kill Rains, I'll kill Parker, I'll fucking kill Pinkerton and every deputy he has! I won't stop until they're all dead for what they done to my family!" he seethed, his fist banging down on the coffee table in front of him as his anger slowly burned away his tears.

Zee finally realized that the rust color on his hands wasn't dirt from the trail, it was Jimmy's blood. Cole was covered with it.

His sharp blues eyes followed her stare to the unnatural coloring that was just beginning to dry, clinging tightly under his nails and to his skin in some places and flaking off in others. He jerked his arm from her light touch, his silent death-glare turning back onto her and Zee wondered if she was wrong about him. Perhaps the rumors _were_ true that Cole Younger had run so wild that he was nothing more than the man sketched on all the wanted posters.

Maybe he really was nothing but a thief and a murderer.

"You still goin' with Jesse, Zerelda?" he asked coldly. "Cause if ya are, you should know that he told me not to do this job. Jim's life is _completely_ on my hands. The merciful thing would've been to stand him up against a wall and shoot him myself. At least then he would've died quick. I'm sure if my cousin had been the leader, he would've pulled off the robbery and nobody would've gotten hurt.

"So thank God every morning and every night, Zee. Thank the Almighty that you fell in love with Jesse James instead of a dog like me," he growled before standing, stomping out of the room and out of the house, his anger and hurt following close in his wake and darkening everything it touched.


	2. Don\'t Leave Us

* * *

He'd hardly gotten his horse gathered up and hidden in the Doc's barn before his two little sisters came riding at a gallop into the yard on the same horse. They both jumped down. Becky first, then Lauren with the aid of her older, taller sister.

Cole's first reaction as he walked over was to cuss the two of them until their ears bled for taking the risk of coming out of hiding. He'd gone to great lengths to make sure no one would be able to use the eleven and seven year old girls against their older male relatives in the James-Younger gang, and it didn't improve his temper at all to see them out in the open, especially since the last time he'd spoken to them over a year before they'd told him in no uncertain terms that they'd never call him brother again for taking both Bob and Jim off to fight in yet another war and leaving them alone.

Just like when they'd disowned themselves from him, they were both sobbing. But unlike then they ignored his angry look and threw themselves at him, wrapping their short arms around his waist as best they could and burying their faces against his stomach and chest.

"Jesse came and he told us that you were taking Jim here and that Pinkerton's men were after you and he reckoned that they'd caught you both and that Bob was all we had left. They told us to stay put until they came back, but we just couldn't!" Becky sobbed, her tears quickly soaking into his cotton shirt.

"Don't get hanged again, Cole! Please don't die!" Lauren added, her words mostly muffled against his cotton shirtfront.

He sighed, his spite quickly cooling into a sorrow that drained him of all his energy. With anyone else he would've been ornery, bucked against their attempts at contact with him. But these were his 'lil sisters. They'd been babies when he'd left for war at seventeen and they hadn't so much as given him the time of day since he'd gotten home. When the Younger brothers had returned from fighting the girls had immediately taken to Bob like he'd never left. Cole they'd shunned, acting shy around him and hardly saying a word as they watched him box the two older brothers they loved into line day in and day out while the three of them went about running the farm _Cole's _way.

A lot of things had changed in the sweet little world they'd shared with Jimmy and their Aunt James when he'd walked back into their lives after such a long absence. They'd been afraid of him, but when they thought they might actually lose him, they were all sugar and tears, melting in his arms.

"The rest of the gang pulled most of the detectives off my tail. I only had to lose a few of 'em," he explained, tone hollow as his mind wandered back to Jim.

"Cole, is Jimmy gonna die?" Becky asked, her eyes bright with tears in the late afternoon light. She was staring up at him, looking for answers he couldn't give.

It took just about all his strength to bite back the words that almost automatically came out of his mouth. So many times he'd been asked that same question by soldiers in the army he'd outranked. Every single one he'd barked at, told that everyone had to die eventually and that they were just lucky that their friend or brother or whoever was getting out of the fucking war for good and no one would be shooting at them no more. It was hard to remind himself that these girls were his little sisters, not grown men in an outlaw gang or even boys in a military unit.

They were just girls. And _he_ had to learn to be gentle with them.

"Jimmy's gonna be just fine. It takes more than one bullet to kill a Younger," he assured them, wrapping one arm around Becky's shoulders and pulling her even tighter against him, tangling the fingers on his other hand in Lauren's soft curls.

He had plenty of practice acting overly confident and full of himself. He was sure he could pull it off for the girls, convince them for a while that what he knew in his heart to be true hadn't come to pass.

He'd killed Jim. Walked him right into a trap. He wondered if after his brother died he'd have the courage to face Bob and his cousins, or if the darkness that had come to rest inside his chest would consume him until he was as empty as a corpse.

* * *

AN: Please review! I can't get better at writing if I don't know what's working and what isn't and I would very much like to get better! Thanks so much! 


	3. Leaving Late

"You surprise me," Zee said, startling him a bit from the doze that had just started to claim him.

He was sitting with his back against the headboard of a bed that had belonged to Webb Mimms before he died in the war. The lamp was turned down low so that his two little sisters, who had yet to release their respective holds on him, could fall asleep after their hours upon hours of sobbing.

The two girls had finally cried themselves to dreamland with the aid of the soft chirping lullaby of crickets from outside the open second story window, each lying with her head resting comfortably on Cole's stomach. He still had his arms protectively surrounding them, needing someone to comfort so he wouldn't have to think about the fact that he needed comfort himself.

"Why's that?" he asked, voice low and raw from the stress of a long day. He wasn't used to the experience of being choked up all the time, feeling so guilty about something he just wanted to kill or die. Anything to get rid of the disease eating him alive.

Zee smiled a bit, leaning against one side of the doorway. "Because, you were the last man I ever expected to go soft over a couple of girls who'd missed you."

He shrugged a bit, looking tired and worn. Half-closed eyes and a jaw that kept trying to drop to his chest were dead giveaways. It had been some time since he'd gotten a good night of sleep. "Gotta take care of my own, don't I? Cause if I don't look after them, Jesse will. And I absolutely can't stand the thought of that."

"He's a good man," she whispered.

"Never said he wasn't," he replied quickly, easing the girls off of him and laying them down on the soft pillows he'd been leaning against before getting up and stretching his arms high above his head. He'd hardly moved for the better part of two hours, and he'd gotten terribly stiff. He spent a moment or two just staring at his sisters before carefully covering them up, leaving the lantern burning so they'd be able to see should either of them wake in the middle of the night.

Cole grabbed his hat and gun-belt off the arm of a nearby chair and walked toward her, pausing just as he was passing her in the doorway. He turned those stunningly cold eyes on her again as he leaned in close, invading her personal space and forcing her to press herself against the frame at her back as she shrank away from him. Strange, he was shorter than most of the men in the gang, yet he was by far the most intimidating.

Zee forced her breathing to remain regular even when a shiver ran down her spine as she became incredibly aware of the heat of his body right next to her and the mixed scent of sweat, blood, and the wild that was unique to the members of the James-Younger gang.

"Now, you'd tell me if anything had changed with my brother, wouldn't you, Zerelda?" he inquired, a hard edge lacing his otherwise quiet words.

"I'm not a bank teller for you to be threatening, Coleman," she snapped back, keeping it down so the girls wouldn't wake to see their newfound hero of a brother trying to frighten a woman into telling him something she didn't even know. "When daddy has news about Jimmy, you can be sure that he'll come find you."

He seemed to mull that over for a second before taking a step back. Zee sighed as she regained her sense of standing in a free space. She allowed her eyes to close, opening them again just in time to see Cole dipping his head slightly to put his hat on while walking down the hall toward the stairs. She didn't miss the casual way in which he strapped the pair of sixes around his hips. With Jesse it had never been so obvious, but apparently the members of the gang could hardly fetch a handkerchief after they sneezed without taking along a gun. Perhaps it was just Cole, but Zee figured that sort of thinking probably counted as overly optimistic.

She followed him downstairs and outside, closing the door he'd left open behind her and then watched him pull on his boots while he sat out on the edge of the porch.

"Where're you going?" she questioned suspiciously, wondering if he planned to abandon the majority of his family in the dead of night, sneaking off like a coward.

"I'm a grown man, Zee. And last I checked, you weren't my wife or my mother, so keep your pretty little ass out of my business," he said, hopping off the porch and taking off toward the barn.

She followed anyway, finding that his erratic behavior inspired stubbornness in her that nothing else ever had. She wanted to know what the hell he thought he was doing. If need be, she'd give 'the great outlaw' Cole Younger a piece of her thoughts on men who turned their backs on others, especially children. She wasn't sure if he knew, but even if Jimmy died, there would still be at least three people left who would depend on him to be the head of their family at such a difficult time.

When she found him saddling up his horse she crossed her arms over her chest, wishing she could glare a hole through the back of his head.

"So, when your baby sisters wake up crying for you in a strange place, surrounded by people they hardly know, should I make something up and tell them you're coming back? Or would it be better if I attempted to be honest with them? Not that I would assume they'd know the difference considering the number of lies that their brothers have told them over the years, the promises that have been broken, I can't even imagine..."

"Shuddup!" he yelled over his shoulder. He was so loud his horse started, nearly jerking his shoulder out of place when he stubbornly held onto the reins. Cole cussed, jerking the poor beast around and mounting while the old gelding was still unsettled.

He rode over to her and pulled up, forcing the hard-mouthed animal to stand still. His jaw was clamped so tight his teeth were almost grinding. "You don't know shit about me, Zee Mimms!" he accused, pointing down at her with one hand. "Not a Goddamn thing! This old mule ain't my horse, _in case_ you didn't notice! Jesse dynamited practically an entire town today so we could escape after the robbery and three of my horses spooked and ran off. Now I'm gonna go over to my farm and find them, cause if nothing else, I know my livestock. Right now they're probably taking a nice roll in the pasture north of my house and just gorging themselves on all that green grass. It'll probably take me at least a couple of hours to get them, but once I do, I'll be back. Do you think you could stand to keep everyone in this loony bin calm while I do that, or do I need to stay here while _you_ go out to find them horses?" he asked, falling into the habit of his trademarked biting-sarcasm.

She'd never heard him speak to a girl in such a way and when he did it then she realized why he'd always been in charge of the boys, even during childhood. He was a bully. Plain and simple he could make someone feel absolutely miserable with a few words and then he had them beat. Anyone who didn't take to what he had to say and tried to fight back with their fists merely got pounded physically, and he had no preference which way he crushed a man...or in this case, a woman.

"I'm coming with you," she said, refusing to let him push her around. If nothing else she felt the urge to go along for the sole purpose of irking him out of his mind.

He snorted, rolling his eyes. "Outstanding. I can see why Jesse wants to screw _you_. He _would_ go for a girl who actually thinks she can keep up with Cole Younger on horseback. Now move it, Princess, while I'm still young."

She stepped aside, allowing him to pass, listening as his horse's hoof beats faded into the distance in the direction of his farm.

Zee only paused for a second before grabbing a bridle off the wall and stalking over to the stall where her father's horse was sleeping.


	4. Tell Me Everything

When she reached the Younger farm there wasn't any sign of Cole. Having only taken the time to throw a blanket on the back of her horse, Zee already found herself sitting in a rather uncomfortable position, and the dark gloom of the lonely farm wasn't exactly soothing.

In the eerie moonlight she could just make out the large black scar on the ground where the barn had stood only a year before. The place had been so cheerful back then. The army had left town, Jesse had finally kissed her, and they'd saved Cole from hanging. That night had been so perfect, and had ended so tragically with Ma James and several other townsfolk dying in a series of scare-tactic raids done by Pinkerton's detectives, burning many family farms in the area to the ground.

Her horse bent down to sample the grass in the front yard while she continued to gaze around, her spirits slowly sinking. She'd been duped. She could've stopped him from leaving and she hadn't. Zee swore, thoroughly spitting on her own name, and Cole's for good measure. She'd trusted him and she should've known better. Of all the stupid things...

"You surprise me, Zerelda Mimms."

She jumped just about half a foot off the back of her horse, turning her head around as she frantically searched for the voice that had just addressed her. "That better be you, Coleman," she said, with what she hoped sounded like conviction.

Deep chuckling came from her left, to the south of the acreage as Cole and his horse emerged from the trees. "Now I know for sure you ain't no outlaw's girl. You should know better than to call out a wanted man's name in the dead of night when you don't know for sure who might be listening," he drawled, trotting slowly past her on his way toward the north field. Zee encouraged her horse to follow, falling in beside him.

Compared to the state he'd been in when he'd left her place, he seemed relaxed in the saddle. He sat with his regular semi-sideways slouch, his reins held loose and his whole body swaying lightly to the rhythm of his horse's trot, evidence of a man who'd spent much of his life on horseback. She wondered if and how he'd blown off some of that steam he'd built up all afternoon and evening, or if it was merely the ride that had calmed him.

"Thought you said I wouldn't be able to keep up with you on horseback. Seems like I beat you here," she said, burring him a little for the sake of being irritating.

"Made a stop first, then took the scenic route. Waited out in the woods for a bit with my gun cocked to see if you were the stupidest bounty hunter west of the Mississippi, or just a dim-witted little girl trying to get an outlaw legend alone."

She gasped at the brashness of his words. "Coleman Younger, I never!"

He pulled one of his sixes out in the blink of an eye and pointed it at her head, cutting her oncoming tirade short. "Jesus-Fucking-Christ, Zerelda. I told ya once tonight and I'm not gonna tell ya again. You ain't my mama. She was the only one who ever called me Coleman besides the doc and the hangman. Now are you gonna shut up, or am I going to have to scare your horse so bad he'll bolt all the way to the county line?"

She'd frozen with her mouth slightly open, her eyes stuck on the muzzle of his peacemaker. If she hadn't been so afraid she might've debated in her mind if he actually had the balls to do it.

If any of them did, it would be him.

"Well?" he pressed, _sounding_ calm.

Zee tried to speak and failed. She cleared her throat, licking her lips. "No," she whispered, just loud enough for him to hear her over the thumping of the horses' feet and the creaking of leather.

"No what?"

"No, Cole. I'll shut up."

He holstered his gun and looked ahead, seeming to have suddenly forgotten her. They went on for a moment or two in a horribly tense silence.

"Is that the first time you've ever drawn on a woman?" she asked, the words slipping out before she could stop them. Immediately afterward she wondered if she should try to make a break for it before he shot her.

"Yeah, well, in the complicated words of my overly-educated cousin, Frank James, I've had a rather _dire_ decade, Zee," he reminded her, voice clipped and irritated. "My little brother getting shot today seems to have pushed me to the end of my rope. Now, everyone knows I'm the toughest sonnovabitch in town, but there is only so much bad I can take before I feel the need to start sharing it with others. There, there's my horse, right where I said he'd be."

She looked where he motioned, ahead and to the left, under a giant tree standing in the middle of an otherwise empty pasture. Sure enough, three horses stood under it, still fully tacked, and from the look of it they were all asleep.

"Grab one of them, will you?" he said before sliding off his mount and walking over to take the reins of his horse, and Bob's bay gelding, leading them over toward the house and hitching them at regular intervals along the post out front. He was nearly done unsaddling them by the time Zee caught up with him, her meandering pace just one of the outward signs she'd become lost in thought. She didn't say a word as she went about loosening the saddle on a mare that belonged to Jimmy.

She followed him into the house, carrying in the mare's saddle and blanket.

Cole dropped his load of tack on the floor and then fumbled around with getting a lantern lit in the darkness, finally illuminating the room. He picked up all the saddlebags and placed them on the kitchen table. Opening them up, he removed the contents, some of which included money rolls. From the bag he'd had on the stolen gelding, he removed a large bottle of whiskey, and suddenly Zee had an idea of where he'd 'stopped' between her place and his farm.

"You'd better get back before your daddy starts wondering what happened to you," he said at last, never looking up from the money he counted, stacking the bills in semi-neat piles.

"What, you aren't coming?" she asked. She'd been waiting for him to get up and go with her.

Cole shrugged. "I thought about it. I could go back and spend the night agonizing over whether or not Jimmy's gonna die, and how I could've saved him if I'd been a little quicker, a little smarter. But, I think I'd rather stay here and get raging drunk, bust a few chairs, go kick the dog if I can find him, and then pass out until sometime tomorrow afternoon."

Zee shook her head, raising her hands in exasperation. "I don't understand. What about Becky and Laurie? You said you'd be back to make sure they were okay tonight."

"Thought about that on the way over here too, and I think the girls would be better off if they didn't get used to having me around. Let's face it, I'm either gonna get shot or hanged before age twenty-five."

Zerelda growled her frustration, and to her added dismay he didn't even seem to notice. Then, she had an idea.

She quickly walked over to the cupboards and started going through them, and upon finding what she was looking for, she marched over to the table, took a seat, and banged a shot glass down in front of Cole.

He looked up slightly at her, his regular mean smirk shaping his features. "Well thanks, Sugar, but I was planning on drinkin' it straight from the bottle."

"Cut the crap and pour me a goddamn drink, you son-of-a-bitch," she snapped, her eyes flashing as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"You can't drink with me, Zee. You'd never keep up."

Her eyes narrowed. "We'll see."

He laughed at her tenacity, grabbed the bottle, and pulled the cork to pour her some.

As soon as the little glass was full, she picked it up and held it in front of her, glaring at him with all her might. "If I can take a shot as well as most of the men you know, you have to come back with me tonight. Deal?"

Cole rolled his eyes. "That ain't the kind of talk I'd expect from a good little Christian girl, but all right, you have yourself a deal."

Zee smirked before throwing back her drink, nearly choking on the horrible burning liquid, and hardly able to keep herself from coughing when she smacked the glass back down on the table. She swallowed hard, trying to get the hot iron out of her throat.

"Just as good as any man," she informed him, nodding once as if to confirm her own statement.

Cole's mean smirk had turned to one of vast amusement. She knew the look well from their childhood days. It was the cutest expression she'd ever seen on a young man, the way he cocked his head, and grinned sideways, a slight divot appearing in one cheek, making him appear boyish. But based on what she'd both witnessed and heard in the past, a slight chill settled in her bones when she saw that particular mischievous look of his.

"Na, not as good as _any_ man. The point is to see how many drinks in a row you can handle, not how you take just one," he enlightened her, refilling the small glass.

She picked it up, still glaring at him, but inside she wondered if she was going to be sick. He held out the bottle and allowed it to briefly clink against her shot.

"Cheers," he invited, slumping down in his seat and raising the bottle to his lips. Zee did the same, throwing back the drink like she had the last one, only this time she did choke.

He didn't laugh while she coughed and sputtered. In fact, he didn't say a word. When she finally looked up, she saw why. He had the bottle of whiskey tilted until it was nearly vertical, and he was rhythmically chugging it down in long pulls—like he'd been born drinking hard liquor.

He studied her critically out of one eye, watching her watch the muscles in his throat grow taunt and then relax with each practiced gulp.

"How long have you been able to do that?" she asked, and he finally lowered the half-empty bottle, setting it on the table and whipping his mouth on the cuff of his jacket.

"Just about forever. Started sneaking beer from behind ol' Davy's bar when I was 'bout eleven. Moved on to the hard stuff a year or two later. Now I'm just hoping I'll drink myself to death before I get shot in the back, or hanged."

"You're certainly well on your way," she agreed morbidly, leaning forward and letting her chin rest on both fists. "Tell me something, Cole. What sort of plans for the future does an outlaw make on his off days? When you're hiding out in some farmer's barn with the horses and pigs, what sort of things do you wish you could have if you were living a normal life?"

"What, you mean like along the lines of a family and that sort of thing?"

Zee shrugged. "Whatever you want. What would be Cole Younger's ideal lifestyle when he settles down somewhere far away from Liberty Missouri, and hangs up his six guns?"

Cole took another swig from the bottle his hand had yet to lose contact with. He was still eyeing her, and _that_ look was back on his face. That dangerous '_I'm going to drive you nuts_' expression he pulled off so well.

"Well, mostly I sit around on those long days wishing that Jesse wasn't my cousin, and that he was a bit prettier. Then I figure we could dress him up in a wig, bonnet, and skirt and have a right good time with him. It ain't easy, goin' months at a time without female company."

Zee felt her face turn bright red and her eyes turn to saucers. Had he really just said what she thought she'd heard him just say? He wanted to—with Jesse?

"You what?" she heard herself ask stupidly.

Cole just grinned, obviously pleased with himself. "I told ya, you don't know shit about me, Zee. If you did, you would've known I'd been drinking the second I rode up to the house just now. Stopped at Malone's new bar and figured I'd get the axels greased before I started to go heavy tonight. That bit about Jesse, that's just how I am when I ain't sober. I say the most shocking thing I can think of, and more often than not it gets me in a nice big heap of trouble. You should've seen the shiner I gave Jess when I pulled that one on him last month in a saloon up near the Iowa boarder."

Zee rolled her eyes, imagining the fight. "I believe you are just about the most vulgar man I've ever met, Mr. Younger."

He laughed, leaning heavily on the table with one forearm until it creaked and groaned as he heaved himself to his feet. He picked up the bottle, and threw the saddlebag he'd stuffed all the money into over his shoulder before motioning toward the darker portions of the house. "Bring the lamp, Zee. I gotta go lie down somewhere in case I pass out. There ain't nothing I hate more than waking up with a stiff back from sitting up all night."

Zee complied, taking the lamp from its hook and then subconsciously following him to the first door they came to in the hallway. He opened it and walked in, dropping the bag on the only chair, and then thumping down on the bed, bouncing a little on it.

"Hang it there," he said, motioning to the lamp hook.

Again she complied, then just stood there, looking at him grinning in her direction in the low light.

"What now?" she asked tiredly, wondering if she should just turn around and leave. She was starting to wonder why she'd stuck around as long as she had. It was obviously no use trying to soften the hard exterior of Cole Younger with a woman's touch.

"You do look a little like my mama. I just realized it. You've got a similar nose. Eyes and hair are all different, but the nose is there. See, she's in that picture right behind you."

Zee turned to look. Sure enough, there was a portrait of Mrs. Younger sitting in a rocking chair, pregnant with one of her five children.

"That you with her in that picture, Cole?" Zee asked, teasing lightly.

"Nope, that would've been Jimmy she was carrying. It's fitting..." he trailed off, taking a drink and staring at the rough floorboards.

"Why's that?" she asked.

Cole patted a spot on the bed next to him. "Come on over, and I'll tell ya all about it. Jesse said you're a right good—ah, what's the word... Damn Frank, he's never around when I need him!"

"I'm a good what?" Zee asked indignantly. She figured there was probably another immature comment about to drop out of the outlaw's mouth.

Cole snapped his fingers a couple times as if the action might bring the word to him out of thin air. "You know, the stuff ya do for him. To his back and his neck when he gets all tensed up like he does. They got those kinds of girls in the cities. Frank knows them big complicated words. He's real good at figuring out what I'm talking about so I don't sound like such an idiot."

"A masseuse?" she asked, hoping she wasn't misreading him, and he was indeed making reference to something so harmless. She had given Jesse a shoulder rub or two. She'd gotten to nearly be a professional at using her hands on a man's back when she was a girl.

Her brother Webb hadn't been born with a good spine, and it had pained him at times. There had been days when all he could do was lie in bed and the only thing that made him feel any better was having her work on him. She didn't doubt that his bad back was one of the reasons why he became the only Liberty Boy Cole didn't manage to bring home alive from war.

"Yes," he said immediately, as if grateful she'd supplied the word before he'd dug himself any deeper into a hole. "A masseuse. Do you think you could do that for me? Just for a little bit? Jesse shoved me backward over a table during the robbery, and I think I must've jammed my shoulder," he said, shrugging the injured part in question and grimacing like it pained him badly. For the barest second he sounded very much like a hurt little boy.

Finding his soft request tugging at her heartstrings, Zee obliged him. Walking over and sitting down next to him on the bed, she scooted a bit behind him and cracked her knuckles before hesitantly starting on the thick muscles connecting his neck to his broad shoulders.

Cole groaned a little. "Shit that feels good. Just keep that up and I'll tell ya whatever you want to know."

"Whatever I want to know, huh?" she said softly. She wasn't sure how much she wanted to know from him. But, considering that he was well on his way to being drunk, she figured it wouldn't hurt to ask him a simple question or two, just to keep him awake for a while. She looked around, taking in the size of the bedroom they sat in. "Did your parents give you the biggest room, or did you claim it when you came back from the war?" she asked at last.

He rolled his shoulders against her hands. "Hm, this was mama and pop's room. Mine was across the hall. That's why it's fitting tonight, seeing that picture of my mother. Jimmy was conceived in this bed, and so were the girls, and Bob. I was always a light sleeper, but it took me a long time to figure out that the creaking springs in here meant I'd be cursed with a new sibling in the near future," he said, taking a drink.

Zee wrinkled her nose a bit. "I'm glad I didn't have to go through _that,_" she drawled. "Webb was older than me. Besides, I really don't remember my parents ever being intimate. Mama was always so ill. All I can remember is daddy taking care of her."

"I wouldn't call what my parents had 'intimacy.' There wasn't anything intimate about it," he informed her, scratching absently at his forehead.

Zee moved her hands down between his shoulder blades, kneading muscles that had suffered far too long from the sort of tightness that came from being on the run. "Well, sometimes love fades. You weren't there when they first got married. For all you know your own conception was all sweet intimacy."

He turned to look at her over his shoulder, his expression both grave and thoughtful. She paused, looking back at him and waiting for him to speak.

"I didn't realize there were still people in town who didn't know about me," he finally said.

"Know what?" Had she missed something? Judging by funny expression on his face, she had, and it was something big.

"Part of the reason I have the reputation I do is because no one expected me to turn out civil. They didn't figure anything good could come from a boy conceived in a whore house in St. Louis. Didn't you ever wonder why I had blonde hair and blue eyes when everyone I'm supposedly related to has brown hair, brown eyes, and darker skin?" he asked, not sounding mad, just curious...

"So, your mama was a paid girl?"

He nodded. "Yep. My daddy was a river rat. Hell, he was probably an outlaw too. Maybe a pirate on the Mississippi. Figure that's where I got my temper, from him."

"But, I thought paid girls had ways of getting rid of babies. Usually they didn't have a choice about it."

Cole shrugged, casting his eyes downward. "Yeah, they probably do—but my Aunt, Mrs. James—when she found out her sister was pregnant, she had Uncle James and a few other men go to St. Louis and get her. Aunt James used to tell me how when my mother came to live with them she was half-starved, because the people runnin' the place where she worked wouldn't let her eat a lot of the time. She'd gained weight with me, and since she hadn't told them, they thought she was sneaking some off to the side, getting fat. The Jameses, they tried to get her healthy again, but she still had me early and it just about killed us both." He chuckled at the memory of the story before continuing, much to Zerelda's bewilderment. "Uncle Frank used to say he'd pick me up, and I was so small I fit in just one of his arms."

"That's terrible, Cole."

"Of course it's terrible. I probably would've been as big as Bob if I hadn't been born premature. At my height do you have any idea what a boy with my sort of history has to go through to get any sort of respect in this town?"

Zee shrugged, even though she knew he wouldn't be able to see it because of her position behind him. "I don't know. I suppose you'd have to beat up the biggest, strongest man from Liberty when you ran into him and his men in a saloon during the war, and then have every man and boy from your home county who gave witness write their girls about it."

Cole only shook his head. "At the time, I thought that just about did it too. Then I started robbing banks. Gotten nothing but respect since then. Both good and bad."

"Hmm," Zee hummed, still kneading along his spine with the heel of her palm. "So, what happened to your mama, after you were born? What did she do?"

"Mama? Oh, she had to go stay at your place for a long time, so your pop could look after her. Aunt James was trying to wet nurse me, and care for Frank. He was only about a year old then. She probably could've handled two babies, but I was as stubborn then as I am now. I'd hardly eat. They didn't think I'd make it. So when things started getting bleak, Aunt James mixed up some corn mash and fed that to me with a bottle. Said I took to it straight off and I got so greedy about it that by three months I was the fattest baby she'd ever seen," he reminisced, laughing shyly.

"Your mother must've married Mr. Younger soon after that, didn't she?"

"I think so. It wasn't too long. He was getting on in years, probably figured it was better to have a family to hand his land over to when he was gone than to shun a whore and her bastard."

Zee smiled sadly, sliding one comforting arm around his chest and hugging him from behind while she let her cheek come to rest against the back of his neck. "Sounds like he was a good man," she whispered.

Cole nodded once. "Yeah, he was. When he wasn't drinkin' and no one was around to shame him. Sometimes his friends would taunt him about me not bein' his boy. Some would claim they'd been around to see my mama, and she'd been more than courteous. Them nights he'd come home and beat the hell out of me and her. He had problems with a brain disease as he got older. He got so sick he could hardly take care of himself sometimes. Lived in horrible pain. After the episodes he had, or the drunkenness, he'd always be sorry about hurting any of us. He couldn't stand what he was becoming. He finally made the mistake of turning on Becky and Jim; knocked her down, and was just about ready to kill him. I gave him his peace that night. Mama went in childbirth some months later."

"You killed Ray Younger?" she said, stunned nearly stupid.

Cole took the hand she had resting on his chest and squeezed it. "Thought you knew by now, Zee. I'll kill anyone who threatens my family, or my farm. For me it ain't a choice. It's just something to be done."

Not pulling from his grip, she eased herself around him so she could look him in the face while sitting beside him. "Is Jesse like that? For him, is killing something just to be done?"

Cole shrugged, a slight frown lining his features. "For Jesse? Na, it ain't the same for Jesse. He thinks too much about most things, and I don't think he can forget the faces. I think they haunt him in his sleep. Now you tell me something, Zerelda. Have you ever been properly kissed by a man, or has my little cousin been failing in his duties?" he asked, quite obviously changing the subject.

"Jesse's kissed me," Zee said, defending her old boyfriend. "Once," she admitted under the scrutiny of a very critical look from Cole.

"Hmm." He cocked his head to one side. "Well, since you've only been kissed by a man who's experience is with paid girls, I suppose it would be nice if I filled in the gaps of what you've been missing, wouldn't it?"

Again her eyes widened slightly in shock. "Paid girls! Jesse's been to see paid girls!"

"Slow down, Zee. There ain't a man in the gang who hasn't been with a paid girl. When a boy goes to war a virgin, and sees some of his best friends die in so many horribly ways, he goes and gets it fixed in a hurry. All you can do is try not to die before you've gotten a chance to live," he said quietly, leaning toward her while gently pulling her slim arm toward him, whispering in her ear, "Some things make a man do crazy things. Like nearly hanging from a noose. Makes him realize the things he really wants."

She was about to ask him what sort of things _he_ really wanted when his lips suddenly captured hers, then there wasn't much room for conversation.

He had a softer manner of kissing a girl than Jesse. The way his mouth pressed gently against hers felt neither demanding, nor expectant, just...sweet, simple. He smiled contentedly after he pulled away a few inches, like he was awful proud of himself. He pressed the whiskey bottle against her chest.

"You ain't had enough to drink, Zee Mimms. So get working on that bottle. I'll tell you when you can stop," he said, that beautiful smile of his hypnotizing her into complying with his wishes.

Zee took the bottle. "My goodness, Cole. You've just about got me convinced that you're quite the charming young gentleman," she said, the words dripping with amused sarcasm.

He nodded, looking at her dully. "Yeah. The Younger charm's just getting warmed up. Now shut up and drink," he ordered, still grinning as one of his arms wrapped tightly around her waist and pulled her close so he could kiss her again.


	5. The Only One

Cole never know Jesse had allowed her to remain so innocent. Maybe it was the alcohol, but he'd never seen Zee so off kilter. If anything, from the way she carried herself, he would've thought for sure that she had _some_ kind of experience. Not as much as he had, but some, nonetheless.

He'd been wrong, but for once he wasn't sorry.

It was just like him, to be thinking with his dick while Jim was laid up, probably dying.

It'd kill the kid to know. He'd never understand, just think it was further proof that his brother didn't give a damn if he lived—or died.

In the same way the little girls chased after Bob, trying to hold his attention on them after years of living without it, Jim followed Cole everywhere for a long while.

More often than not he'd find his young shadow right at his side, asking an unending number of questions until his big brother smacked him into silence. He'd wanted to know _everything_. About killing, war strategy, girls, kissing, sex, drinking.

It took Jimmy a few weeks before he was able to accurately gauge Cole's fast-fluctuating moods even half as well as Bob could, but eventually he'd picked up on when it was safe to be insatiably curious. At those times his eyes would light up and he'd take off on longwinded tangents; and on the rare occasion when he actually shut up long enough for an answer to be given to him, Jim's brain soaked up every word like a sponge.

He wasn't like Bob, that much Cole figured out pretty quick. He and Bob were used to each other's company. Bob was the dog, Cole was the dog kicker. They got along fine when they needed to, and didn't when they didn't. But Jimmy was different. Cole roughed up Jim a little and the kid just didn't understand why. He didn't realize that was how the Younger brothers acted toward each other. They weren't like Jesse and Frank. Cole beat on Bob, when Bob got angry enough he beat on Cole. When he thought Jim had it coming, Cole beat on him too.

The boy sure did have those hurt puppy-dog eyes down flat, though. Made him feel guilty as hell about hurting the kid too bad.

No wonder Bob resolved to leave Jim alone.

On a similar line of thought, it was also just like Cole to not even be focused on the girl he was with. Zee was a beautiful woman. Sadie, Mary, Jane, and half a dozen others he couldn't remember the names of had all been beautiful women—some of them paid, some of them not. But somehow they'd never been enough. Physically they satisfied him, temporarily cooled the fire constantly tormenting him—but it always came back. Eventually he'd settled on the idea that the reason none of them were enough was because he didn't want a dozen women.

He wanted _one_.

He never questioned the reasoning. He wasn't the sort of man, like Frank, who enjoyed delving to a deeper level of understanding when it came to complicated things. He _just_ _knew_. Cole also _just_ _knew_ the idea was ludicrous, because it went completely against his character and sometimes it scared the living hell out of him. But it still _never_ went away. Not since he was a boy of seventeen losing his virginity to the first decent-looking woman willing to take it. It had been an awkward and short experience, especially since he hadn't been able to completely push back the slight twinge of guilt he'd felt.

She'd sworn she would wait for him. Promised that when he got back from war she would come back from school or, if the war took too long, she'd wait in her parents' house until he returned. In the weeks leading up to the day he'd left Liberty, they'd often lain out on a blanket in one of her father's fields, content with each other for the first time in their lives, just staring up at the stars. They'd planned it all. Mapped out the whole rest of their lives in a handful of peaceful evenings.

He'd come back and restore order in the Younger house, run his farm better than any man could expect to, and impress her father. When he had permission he'd ask her to marry him, be Mrs. Cole Younger and stay at his side for the rest of his days.

They'd argued playfully over a few things. He'd teased that he wanted babies, lots of them. She'd disagreed on the principle that she'd have to give birth to them all, and insisted that there be a limit if at all possible.

He'd wanted to build a house for the two of them to live in, out of sight of the house where his brothers and sisters would continue to live. She'd hated the idea, insisting that after spending her whole life as the middle child in a family of seven, she just wouldn't be able to stand sharing a house with only one person. Besides, she liked his brothers and told him that his little sisters needed a mother figure.

He'd prodded her further, telling her a new home would hardly be lonely after the first three or four children came. She'd laughed out loud, nearly busting a rib as she rolled away from him. He'd turned onto his side and grabbed her by the shirt she'd been wearing, one that he'd had good reason to believe belonged to one of her older brothers, and had flipped her back over, seeing how red her face had turned in the moonlight just before he'd kissed her for the first time.

_She took his rough jaw in her hands, running her thumbs softly over his cheek bones, seeming to be admiring the strength they brought to his facial structure. "They'll need you, Cole. Your brothers and baby sisters. Jimmy's going to have to run the farm practically on his own. The girls will have to live with Jesse and Frank's mama until they're old enough to help. Besides, these plans of ours, they're nothing. Just silly dreams. We've hardly been able to stand each other our whole lives. My brothers want to kill you and yours a lot of the time..."_

_He returned the gentle touch, cupping her soft face in one work-calloused palm. "No, no, Belle, I meant it, every word. I know I ain't very smart, not like Frank and Jesse James. People round this town call me a bastard behind my back, but I'm stronger than any of them, and I love you," he insisted, whispering so as to not break the mood that had developed between them. "That's got to count for something, don't it?"_

_Pain flashed across her eyes, just before she managed to turn them away from his gaze. She cleared her throat deliberately. "Cole, you know I care about you. Always have, since we were in diapers together. But I can't get attached to you like that, not now. I got enough people I love going away to war. I don't want my heart getting broke more times than need be."_

_He thought about that for a moment, then reached out again to tilt her chin up, so she had no choice but to look at him. He hoped that she could see that his very soul was bared to her at that moment. The next words he whispered in her ear as he leaned close, he would've denied in a second to anyone who'd asked. But he'd never meant anything more adamantly in his life. At least, he'd thought so, at the time..._

_"Say you love me, Belle. Say, 'I swear before God that I love Cole Younger with all my heart, and when he comes back from war, I'm gonna marry him.' You say that and then there won't be no way that anything bad'll happen to me. Not in this war, not ever. I will come back to you when this thing is over. Even if no one else does, I will."_

She'd said it, perhaps only to give him hope, something to fight for after he went away. He hadn't assumed he would ever know for sure, but he'd kissed her again anyway, and they'd made undying promises to each other for another good half hour. Then her big brother Wes had come calling for her, and she'd been forced to leave Cole hiding in the tall grass, so she could pretend like she'd been out alone watching a meteor shower and day dreaming.

He'd done that for her too. Back then, Wes Mason had been the toughest son-of-a-bitch in the county, and although Cole was some four years younger than the tree of a man, and quite a bit shorter, there hadn't been a moment in his life when he'd feared him. He could see the fight between them down the road in his future, but for the time being his girl's loving touches, her murmurs of placating words, and the feel of her lips brushing his so softly all worked together to calm his burning temper in a way nothing ever had, before or since, and he'd let her go without standing up and making a scene with her brother.

At the time it had probably been for the best. There would've been a lot of assuming going on if Wes had seen the notorious Cole Younger lying out in a field with his fifteen year old sister. Even if Belle hadn't known then, most of the men in town were savvy to Cole's dealings with bar maids, and worst of all, Jenny Tine.

Even at sixteen he'd already made his share of mistakes, and more than one or two enemies. There weren't many fathers around Liberty willing to trust the oldest Younger boy around their daughters. Ironically, though, most mothers absolutely adored Bob and Jim, and no one really minded either of _them_. Just him. _He_ was the bad apple in a bunch of otherwise good boys that just happened to have the misfortune of being his blood.

"Cole?"

His mind snapped back to the present. He raised his head slightly, looking at the blonde beauty who'd so suddenly become confident in her handling of his body. While he'd been drifting she'd taken it upon herself to undo all the buttons on his shirt, and she was running a soothing hand down his chest, letting it come to rest on his belly.

"That's good, Zee. Real good," he encouraged lightly, shifting his weight on the bed.

"Where'd you get all these scars?" she asked, tracing over an especially horrible looking one that ran around his side, marring the healthy look of the tough muscle he'd built through the years.

He swallowed thickly, letting his head fall back to rest on a pillow. "Mm, I got that one in a brawl down in Georgia. Was drunk, wondered off alone. Got into it with the best damn knife fighter I've ever seen in my life. He cut me up pretty bad."

"What happened? How did you get away?"

He shook his head. "He was a dead man the minute he started in on me."

Zee leaned down to blow softly across his heated skin. "Why? Because he mistakenly messed with Cole Younger?"

Cole raised one eyebrow, still staring at the ceiling. "Well, there was that—and the fact that only a dead man brings a knife to a gun fight. Shot the bastard between the eyes just before he could gut me. If I'd been sober he wouldn't of had a chance."

Her warm lips on his stomach once again brought him crashing back into the moment. He groaned, forcing himself to sit up, taking some of his weight on his elbows. She looked up at him, probably waiting for some sort of sign of what she should do next to please him.

Even drunk he knew better. The only way he was getting anything that night was if he kissed her, long and hard. He had to draw her in slowly, or else she'd never go for it. Why hadn't she left? She was a good Christian girl. Was it to spite Jesse? Because she felt sorry for him? Was it possible that she was genuinely attracted to him? He'd found over the past months that there was nothing that got a woman hotter than being with a famous outlaw. Still, he wasn't sure if he could quite buy that on its own. Maybe he was missing something.

Then again, when he pulled her up beside him and melded his lips to hers, he didn't honestly care. She was warm, feminine, and she tasted like whiskey. Before he knew it they were rid of the rest of their clothes and under the covers. His tanned skin was a sharp contrast to her pale complexion.

As always the twinge of guilt met him, twisting his insides, reminding him of promises he'd made to wait.

Belle should've been the only one. Why else had he survived the war?


End file.
